Checkmate (IC)

[Dr Archeville]

You can fetch me a sandwich.

... you... you really did not just say that, did you?

What? Working makes me hungry.

This is why we cannot have nice things.

"I believe dat, for de moment," Archeville whispered, "you vould do best for our team by keeping a look out, vhile Herr Star keeps an 'ear' on de radio chatter. Star, if you need to retract part of your cloaking field in order to do dat, pull it avay from me; mein own devices can keep me cloaked."

[Heritage]

"I believe dat, for de moment," Archeville whispered, "you vould do best for our team by keeping a look out, vhile Herr Star keeps an 'ear' on de radio chatter. Star, if you need to retract part of your cloaking field in order to do dat, pull it avay from me; mein own devices can keep me cloaked."

Grim nods as she steps a short distance away from the rest of the group, quickly fading until she's little more than a smudge in the air, ears alert for the slightest sign of trouble.

[Avenger Assembled]

Magpie disappeared suddenly, her body silently collapsing in on itself like a candle snuffing itself out. As the two remaining guards prepared to strike, one drawing his gun and the other going for an alarm, suddenly there were two tiny, nearly insignificant flashes of light behind their heads. One fell, then another, and Magpie herself formed back up again behind them. Avenger acted in concert with his ally from the other dimension, hitting the last two fallen guards hard enough that they wouldn't be getting up again anytime soon. The dark Avenger and the tiny Magpie shared a look, a brief moment of comradeship, as the team studied the hallway they'd just cleared.

By now the children had begun to leave their rooms, peering out with wide eyes at the heroes who'd come to rescue them. While Magpie made an immediate beeline for her own children, sweeping them up with tears in her eyes, Avenger took the opportunity to move from the control room to rejoin his colleagues. "All down. Suggest we get them out, fast."

[N/A]

The Scarab turned to address her team. "With the guards incapacitated and the children missing from their cells, it is only a matter of time until someone checks in and the alarm is raised. The clock is now ticking. We need to extract the children quickly."

"Phantom, can you place them in your pocket dimension? Will they be safe there? If the experience is too traumatic for an extended stay, then teleport yourself somewhere safe, unload them, and return as quickly as you can. Take them to our world, if necessary."

She raised her hands to her temples. "I will contact the other team for a status report." She reached out to make mental contact with Doktor Archeville. Archeville, this is The Scarab. We have successfully incapacitated the guards on the pediatric level and are now extracting the children. What is your progress on the detention level?

[alderwitch]

Phantom glanced around at the children and gave one sharp shake of her head at the idea of keeping them in the pocket although she didn't explain her reasons aloud. Instead she let the telepath pick her thoughts so as not to frighten the children. If anything happens to me in the fight, they would be trapped. Alone and frightened. I will take them someplace safe.

"Scarab, if you'd step back, please. Magpie, I assume you'll be going with the children?" Phantom strode into the center of the children, solidifying so that she wouldn't frighten any of them by ghosting through them. Once there she scooped up a chubby little boy who was right on the edge of toddler hood. Phantom couldn't help but smile as sticky fingers reached for the glinting amulet at her throat. These were the moments that really did make it all worthwhile. "Now, if everyone could close their eyes. I'll see if I can find us somewhere sunny."

Her cloak flared wide enough to cover the cluster of children within its dark folds. Phantom's voice faded out as she teleported out of the citidel and halfway around the world.

[Dr Archeville]

Archeville, this is The Scarab. We have successfully incapacitated the guards on the pediatric level and are now extracting the children. What is your progress on the detention level?

Muah hah hah hah hah!

By which I mean, we have full access to the computer systems, and all internal alarms have been shut down.

You're welcome!

Quiet, you.

"Scarab's group has disabled de guards," Archeville reported, "und dey are extracting de children now. Und I believe I should be able to see...."

Archeville tried accessing the internal sensors, to see what Scarab & Co. were doing, and to see if anyone was headed towards them, or towards his own group.

[Cyroa]

Dark Star floated above the floor, keeping his energies constant. His part in this was simply to hide his companions while they got the job done of freeing the prisoners and the children. Until they confronted the dastardly villain directly, he needed to keep focused. He wouldn't risk their exposure simply because he became distracted. "Have the prisoner's been freed?" He simply assumed that the other team had been successful at freeing the children and they would be done here shortly. Beyond that, he had little to say until they got the 'go' signal.

[Avenger Assembled]

With the children saved and safely deposited on a remote tropical island, Phantom could return to rejoin the rest of the group in the tower of Arachnos. Magpie seemed to be a safe guardian for the kids, already gathering them around her on the white South Pacific beach to tell them how they'd come so far and who was working to liberate their world. With the children's corridor left freed of its unhappy prisoners, Avenger took the liberty of stuffing each and every guard into their open equipment locker, gently closing it with a resounding finality. "No problem."

Down below in the prison corridor, Wesley cunningly released a knockout gas from his pores that subtly, quickly, and quietly knocked out the guards in the lower level before they could do more than sigh. "Human sleep hormones," he said, looking a little embarrassed. "Tuned it right to 'em with my lifesight. Saw it on the Discovery Channel." That left only liberating Columbia to be accomplished, a task that would be much easier with the help of the one hero there who'd had a chance to work with her.

[Avenger Assembled]

The prison team freed Columbia, Grimalkin coming up with a remarkable story to explain to the troubled powerhouse why she'd impersonated her daughter earlier and how they all needed to work together to overthrow the master of the world. The teams met up again in the corridor above the prison, the block that had once held the imprisoned children, to discuss their strategy, no small feat now that Phantom had returned from depositing the children and Magpie on the other world. Avenger had pressed for some private interrogation time with the unconscious guards in the closet, and returned in a jauntier mood than when he'd left. "Got an access code to the level above. Should give us full access to Arachnos himself."

[Avenger Assembled]

Adventures, even ones that stretch out across time, space, and dimensions, always have an ending. The ending of the great adventure to the other world began when the assembled superheroes of the Knights of Freedom burst in through the door of Arachnos' secret lair, having crept their way up so sneakily through layers upon layers of ductwork and security corridors to reach the lair of the arcane master of the world. With a massive blow of an enlarged fist, Wesley Knight himself battered aside the heavy steel door of Arachnos' lair and brought the Knights of Freedom and their allies face-to-face with the monster who had broken this world over his knee.

Arachnos was a tall man in oddly familiar armor, his black hair cascading down over his forehead, a lightning-bolt scar over one eye the only visible part of his face, a red and yellow cape cascading down his back. As the heroes crashed through his door, he turned from the magnificent grimoire before him, the massive book resting on the keyboard of a massive computer that groaned with arcane and technological power. On the monitors behind him were scenes of destruction and domination, the flags and banners of a world broken beneath the heel of one man.

"You'll never win, you monster!" called Divine, hefting a massive piece of steel over her head to throw at Arachnos a moment before the armored megalomaniac suddenly raised his hands and fired twin terrible beams of living energy; cascades of power that were clearly a never-ending stream of spiders! The monstrous regiment of vermin blasted Divine, Knight, and a horrified Grimalkin through the walls, their sheer concussive force taking all the heroes by surprise.

"FOOLS!" he boomed. "You think I don't know you!? The keeper of the gates, my own twisted mirror, and the rest of you!? Now you shall meet your DOOM! at the hands of Arachnos! Your world shall know peace and order as this one has, however many of you dare stand in my way!"

[N/A]

The Scarab began to tune out Arachnos and his ramblings as she felt a slight tug on her extranormal senses. Something's not right here. She rested her fingers against her temples and reached out with her mind. "The apparent lack of my counterpart on this world has caused the resident despot to grow lax in his precautions. Obviously, they are not accustomed to dealing with a psychic of my caliber. Otherwise, they would not attempt to fool us with such pedestrian illusions."

The Scarab raised one hand into the air and snapped her fingers. Odysseus and Valkyrie appeared out of thin air in the corner of the room as the powers concealing their presence shattered under The Scarab's mighty telepathic onslaught.

"I would ask if you have any more parlor tricks up your sleeve, but that discussion would be a purely intellectual exercise, as you will not get another chance to display them." She brought her arm down in a powerful gesture, pointing at Arachnos. "KNIGHTS, TO ARMS!!!"

[Avenger Assembled]

"First Heru-Ra, then the world!" shouted Odysseus, bringing his weapons to bear on the evident leader of the Knights. With an enormous roar, bolts of mystic electricity came crackling from his armor, lashing out over the Scarab and threatening to shatter her very consciousness as they bored into her soul. He flew down over the others as he did so, lording it over them with the sheer might of his mystically empowered armor. Nearby, Columbia was heavily engaged in hand-to-hand combat with more of her former friends, holding her own against the former Freedom League.

For her part, Valkyrie swooped down fast and brought her blade down right on Avenger's face! Avenger staggered and nearly fell, but bore up under the assault, spitting fire back at her. "You'll have to do better than that!"

[Cyroa]

Dark Star rose up, knowing who the main threat was. Odysseus and Valkyrie were dangerous, but Arachnos was the leader of these villains. But Scarab too a serious hit, and looked to be in trouble. He threw one hand forward, sending a blast of gravitic energy at Arachnos, even as he moved over to Scarab. Moving one hand over the reeling hero, he infused her with restorative radiation, standing/floating over her as guard while she recovered. "Not today. Not by you," he said firmly.

[Avenger Assembled]

Arachnos kept his feet as Dark Star's gravitic energy washed over his body, the dictator bearing up despite the sheer power of the hero's assault. "TAKE ME SINGLY OR ALL AT ONCE!" boomed Arachnos. "None of you shall survive before the assault of that which is eternal!"

[alderwitch]

Phantom firmly believed in letting her actions speak for her, which is why she didn't trade banter merely floated to the side of her companions and took aim at Arachnos. She fired a crackling bolt of eldritch lightning even as the wings of her cloak flared back to reveal the void inside. As soon as the lightning left her fingertips, she began to gather a second charge.

[Avenger Assembled]

Phantom's blast sent Arachnos staggering backwards, forcing the dark despot nearly to his knees before he rallied. That left his minions to attend to, Avenger joining Columbia in struggling with Valkyrie, keeping the aerial warrior from bringing her weapons to bear. It was an even match; they were both in for a tough fight.

[Dr Archeville]

He's weakened! Blast him now!

That is what I intend to do, but we have to watch these power levels or this thing will blow up!

"Your first mistake vas in trying to invade Earth-Prime!" Archeville shouted as he blasted away at the stunned would-be conqueror with the sparking, sputtering contraption strapped to his chest, "und your second mistake vas in provoking me!"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Fools!" Arachnos boomed imperiously, Archeville's powerful blast shattering into a thousand fragments against his armored chest. "YOU MIGHT HAVE STOOD AT MY HAND AS I UNIFIED YOUR WORLD! INSTEAD YOU WILL TASTE THE AWESOME FURY OF...ARACHNOS!" He rose to his feet as his armor began to whine, two glowing balls of power shaping inside his open armored hands.